Avada
by artemisgirl
Summary: For Hermione, it starts out as a question. Is it possible to 'Avada Kedavra' oneself? SS/HG


It starts out as a question.

Is it possible to Avada Kedavra oneself?

And then it becomes an obsession.

Can she kill herself?

Hermione does her research. The theory is mixed. Evidence against the possibility is the instinctual survival reflex, which might prevent the caster from ever truly _meaning _the spell when casting the curse upon oneself, and wand lore, which indicates that the wand might prevent the holder from harming oneself purposefully.

But just the _idea..._

Hermione wonders what it would feel like, how pretty the green light would be.

Late one night, her will caves.

She gives in and attempts it, but nothing happens.

She doesn't even manage to get a flash of green light.

Stuffing her disappointment down, she goes to bed.

But she tries the next night.

And the next.

Her friends know nothing of her private project. She keeps it quiet, keeps it secret, and it's not like they notice what she's reading or doing most of the time anyway. They're talking Quidditch, borrowing her notes for classes, and laughing and racing around the castle.

They don't notice how she stares out of the window in Gryffindor tower long into the night, or the books on Unforgivables that fall from her book bag.

And still, Hermione tries.

This night.

And the next.

And the next.

One night, she goes to the Room of Requirement, wondering if the room will aid her. The room is filled with mirrors when she enters, bathed in a blue, ghostly light. Hermione fingers her wand, wondering. She knows normal mirrors explode upon impact with the Killing Curse – a mirror was the second thing she'd tried.

But...

Could the Room of Requirement really make mirrors that are different, somehow...? Ones that will reflect instead of shatter?

It's worth a try, she muses, looking around the room with wide eyes.

Hermione smiles.

It's not happy expression.

She focuses.

"_Avada Kedavra!"_

And the room fills with a flash of green light.

It bounces off the mirror in front of her, narrowly missing her as she gasps, then bounces off a mirror behind her, before bouncing up and disappearing against the roof. Twirling her wand in her fingers, Hermione tries again.

"_Avada Kedavra! Avada Kedavra!"_

Brilliant green flashes of light bounce around her, and Hermione watches them with an expression akin to wonder until they dissipate. She casts again.

"_Avada Kedavra! Avada Kedavra! Avada Kedavra!"_

It becomes a dance, somewhere along the way, Hermione twirling and launching off spells, spinning and dancing in the midst of the bolts of green, firing one off after the other after the other. None of them manage to hit her, and she isn't quick enough to purposefully get in the way, but there is something enchanting and exciting about it all the same.

When she stops to catch her breath, she slowly becomes aware of another person watching her silently, arms folded across a forbidding chest.

Hermione stands up, straightens her clothes, and nods respectfully.

"Professor Snape."

"Miss Granger."

He sizes her up, and Hermione waits. She feels oddly free – her normal dread of detention and losing House points is gone.

Maybe it's because of Snape himself. He looks considering, which Hermione didn't expect – she'd figured he'd take points off, send her to her dormitory, and maybe report her to Dumbledore for using Dark Magic. She didn't expect this – this careful _evaluation._

"Have any of them hit?" he asks her.

Hermione blinks.

"I – ah – I don't _think_ so," she says finally. "I haven't felt anything special, at any rate,if one of them _did_ hit and not have the intended effect."

A smirk twists his lips.

"You would _know_, if one of them had hit," he tells her.

He steps forward, holding out his hand.

"Give me your wand."

Hermione hesitates, looking at him. He raises an eyebrow.

"Miss Granger...?"

She wonders why hesitates, why she doubts. It's not like she's come here not fully aware of every possible outcome, regardless of who's at the other end of the spell.

It's not something she wouldn't welcome, at this point, really.

Hermione hands him her wand.

Snape takes it in his hands and examines it, before nodding satisfactorily.

"As I suspected. It is perfectly attuned to you. Are you ready?"

Hermione looks at him

She nods.

Snape takes careful aim.

"_Avada Kedavra!"_

Her vision goes green.

And it's like nothing she's ever experienced before.

An electric sensation of bliss explodes within her, suffusing every nerve of every inch of her body. She can feel her chest filling with something amazing, this pure green energy that refuses let go, and even her eyes feel like they are being reborn, reforming in her sockets, but only _better, _more well-made, sharper, cleaner, _realer_, and her skin is tight on her body, and it's _glowing_, and-

Abruptly, Hermione falls to the ground.

It takes her several moments to collect herself and stop her panting. Still trying to catch her breath, she looks up at Snape.

Snape is looking at her softly.

"It's something, isn't it?" he says quietly.

"It- it was _amazing_," Hermione tells him, her face a picture of wonder. "It was like- it was like everything incredible and possible and amazing all wrapped up into one giant orgasm of feeling, only it was _everywhere_, and it felt like I- like I became a whole new person," she finishes, looking up at him. "What _was_ that?"

Incredibly, Snape smiles.

It is a slow thing, a small, gentle creeping up of the lips, but it is definitely a smile, and Hermione feels unexpectedly privileged to see such a thing on his face.

"What did you expect, when you came to this room?" he asks her, gesturing to the multitude of mirrors.

"I... I don't know, really," Hermione says honestly. "To hit myself with _Avada. _I wasn't sure what would happen if I did, if my wand would refuse to cooperate, or if I wouldn't be able to truly mean it, or if it would work."

He raises an eyebrow. "You thought you might successfully take your own life, and yet you tried it anyway?"

Hermione meets his eyes.

She gives a small shrug.

"I expected to feel _something,_" she tells him. Her eyes meet his, steady, unafraid. "That was all."

Slowly, Snape nods.

"Yes..." he says. "That was my reason, too, when I first tried."

Hermione is intrigued, and Snape can clearly read her curiosity from her expression. He moves to sit down on a deep blue sofa that appears in the room, and Hermione scrambles to sit down next to him. He nods to her, then relaxes into the cushions.

"You are not the only one to... need to feel something, _anything_, be it good or bad," he says, weighing his words. "Frequently, in times of darkness, I have felt much the same."

Hermione's eyes widen slightly. She understands, she empathizes. The emptiness, the pointlessness, the futility, the overwhelming apathy of _everything_, the desperation to feel _anything_...

_He is like me, _her mind whispers to itself.

"When I first attempted to cast Avada Kedavra on myself, nothing happened. My wand refused, or some part of me held back. I was not dissuaded, though – I continued trying to cast it on myself. And I, too, came upon the Room of Requirement."

"The mirrors were exactly what I needed. Not only could they successfully reflect the spell back to me, but they helped strengthen my resolve – face with myself, what I hated most, I was able to cast the spell with all the hatred and intent I needed."

"And then... it hit."

Hermione nods.

"What _was_ that, Professor?" she asks. "Surely that wasn't death?"

His lips quirk. "And what, this is a quantum suicide scenario? No, Hermione, that was not death. And call me Severus, please. I'm not your professor here."

"If it wasn't death, Pro- Severus," she corrects herself, stumbling, "then what _was_ it?"

He gives her a measuring look.

"Life, Hermione," he tells her. "You felt life."

She raises an eyebrow, incredulous.

"_Life?_" Hermione scoffs. "I'm already _alive_. That felt _nothing_ like-"

"Your own wand cannot take your life," Severus tells her, taking her chin in his hand. His black eyes stare down into her deep brown, and Hermione shivers. "All it can do is show you your life, suffuse you with all of your own being all at once, all the magnificent possibilities that could be, no matter how unlikely, and bathe you in the purity of life in one moment in time."

His eyes bore into hers.

"It is your wand skipping over your death, and moving directly into the part where you are reborn."

Hermione's eyes don't move from his.

"I wanted to die," she tells him.

Severus doesn't look surprised.

"And now I'm not sure I want to," she confesses.

His eyes gleam, and the moment stretches between them.

"I know exactly what you mean," he whispers.

Without a word between them, Hermione leans back into him, and he wraps his arms around her, suffusing her his warmth. His body is welcoming, his arms gentle and soft, and Hermione finds herself relaxing in his embrace.

"No one really understands," she says quietly. "It's all 'Hermione, we won the war' and 'Hermione, why aren't you celebrating?'. No one seems to understand that it should be 'Hermione, where did you go?'"

"And now?" Severus asks her, idly playing with one of her curls.

"Now?" She sighs. "I don't know if I've found myself, but I do think I don't want to die anymore. At least, for a little while." She looks up at him, her eyes meeting his. "Not without feeling that feeling again."

Severus smiles.

"It is only when one's own wand is turned on its owner does life instead of death occur," he tells her. "As such..."

He hands her a wand, and it takes Hermione a moment to realize he is handing her his _own_ wand, a long black rowan length with an intricate handle.

Severus looks at her, and Hermione hesitates.

"Ready?" she asks, her eyes wide.

"Almost."

He leans over to capture her lips in a bright kiss that leaves stars behind her eyes and her breathing short.

"Now."

She flicks the wand.

"_Avada Kedavra!"_

She doesn't realize that he was aiming at her as well, casting simultaneously at her. The bliss that suffuses them both is incredible, wordless in its intensity and glow and power. When they come down, they're both panting. Hermione is surprised to discover that Severus' robes are wet against her bottom, but that he's still hard, pressing against her rear.

"Again?" he murmurs.

A thrill goes through Hermione.

"Again," she replies, and kisses him before she loses her nerve.

He manages to get her the moment after she kisses him, but she gets him right before the power sweeps over her, and there is nothing but the incredible greenness.

Many hours later, Hermione lies panting in Severus' arms, both of them reduced to nothing but their underwear.

"This is addicting, isn't it?" she asks.

Severus gives her an amused look, one eyebrow cocked. "You _think_?"

She ignores the sarcasm, and she sighs. "I don't know how I'll go back to dealing with Harry and Ron and school work after this," she tells him. "Not after... after _this."_

Severus smiles his small smile. "I might have an idea of how to do so."

"Oh?" Hermione turns to look at him fully. "You do?"

His gaze lingers on her hips and her breasts, and Hermione flushes. When his eyes finally reach hers, his pupils are enlarged, and his gaze makes her tingle and squirm.

"Go," he tells her. "Do what is required of you during the day. See your friends, attend your classes, have your silly spats, complete your homework. Let your days be run by your duties. But by night..."

His eyes capture hers with an intense desire, and Hermione whimpers.

"...let us give each other reasons to live."


End file.
